Clinical Molecular Diagnostics for Proteasome Inhibitors in Cancer Therapy

The field of molecular diagnostics is in a state of rapid evolution featuring continuous technology developments and new clinical opportunities for drug selection, predicting efficacy and toxicity, and monitoring disease outcome. The introduction of new anticancer agents targeting the proteasome has created opportunities for the development of companion diagnostics to guide drug use and patient selection. In this chapter the field of molecular diagnostics is reviewed relevant to cancer, and a series of established prognostic factors known to predict the clinical course of multiple myeloma is presented. Biomarkers impacted by the proteasome pathway that may become clinically useful predictors of therapy related outcome are also included. The chapter concludes with a consideration of the emerging field of pharmacogenomics and its potential use for the prediction of drug response for patients treated with proteasome inhibitors.